Joseph Maldonado-Passage (who goes by "Joe Exotic"), seen here in 2013 at the zoo he ran in Wynnewood, Okla., has been charged in a murder-for-hire scheme in which he allegedly tried to hire someone to kill a Florida woman. (Sue Ogrocki / AP)

The cat’s out of the bag.

An Oklahoma zookeeper and former candidate for governor of the state who goes by “Joe Exotic” has been indicted on two counts of hiring a person to commit murder — and the head of Florida-based Big Cat Rescue says she’s the intended victim.

While the woman Maldonado-Passage allegedly had it in for was not named, Big Cat Rescue’s site posted claims that the sanctuary’s CEO Carole Baskin was the planned victim.

“Schreibvogel had made threats online over a period of years including a video of him shooting in the head a blow up doll dressed to look like Carole and an image hanging her in effigy,” the post reads.

Big Cat Rescue, located in Tampa, states that Maldonado-Passage’s motives stem from her work putting a spotlight on his alleged mistreatment of animals.

“Schreibvogel ran, in our view, one of the most notorious cub petting roadside zoos in the country in Wynnewood, OK.,” Big Cat Rescue’s site states. “Years ago he also operated a traveling exhibit that would bring cubs to malls throughout the Midwest and Southwest.

“When Big Cat Rescue educated the malls about the miserable life this created for the cubs and the malls started cancelling Schreibvogel’s traveling exhibit, Schreibvogel retaliated by renaming his traveling show ‘Big Cat Rescue Entertainment’ in order to confuse the public into thinking the show was operated by Big Cat Rescue.”

According to the indictment, Maldonado-Passage gave an unnamed person he hired $3,000 in November of 2017 to travel from Oklahoma to South Carolina and then Florida to commit murder, with the promise of thousands of more dollars once it was done. Maldonado-Passage allegedly made the hired person go to Dallas to get a fake ID to be used to carry out the intended crime, the indictment alleges.

A second count claims that beginning in July 2016, Maldonado-Passage asked a different unnamed person on several occasions to find someone to murder Jane Doe for money. This person connected Maldonado-Passage with an undercover FBI agent, who met with the zookeeper on Dec. 8, 2017 to plot Jane Doe’s murder.

The woman was never harmed, and the U.S. Marshals Service arrested Maldonado-Passage last Friday in Gulf Breeze, Florida.